CHAPTER 16: ROLLO REESE MAY Flashcards
When was Rollo Reese May Born?
Rollo Reese May was born to Earl Tittle and Marie Boughton May in Ada, Ohio, on April 21, 1909. He was the first son, and the second child, in a family of six children.
What happened to May during his second year in Europe?
May began questioning the meaning in his life and finally had a nervous breakdown.
What did a Nervous Breakdown mean to May?
It meant that the rules, principles, valued by which he used to work and live by simple did not suffice anymore.
What is Healthy Religion?
Confidence in the universe, trust in God, belief in one’s fellow-men, or what not, the essence of religion is the belief that something matters– the presupposition that life has meaning.
Existentialism
Philosophy that studies the essence of human nature. The emphasis is on freedom, individuality, and phenomenological experience.
Dasein
To be there.
Indicates that the focus of interest for the existentialist is a particular person experiencing and interpreting the world at a particular time in a particular place.
Why is existence complex and a dynamic process?
By choosing, valuing, accepting, and rejecting, humans are constantly becoming something different than they were.
Becoming
Contention that through their active involvement with their life’s circumstances, authentic people are constantly changing.
Becoming
Contention that through their active involvement with their life’s circumstances, authentic people are constantly changing.
What are Three Modes of Existence
- Umwelt
- Mitwelt
- Eigenwelt
Umwelt
Physical, objective world. The world that is studied by the physical and biological sciences.
Mitwelt
World of human interactions.
Eigenwelt
The intrapersonal world. An individual’s self-awareness.
Alienation
A person’s estrangement from some aspect of his or her nature.
Alienation results in feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and despair.
Because there are three modes of existence, one can become alienated from nature (Umwelt), from other people (Mitwelt), or from oneself (Eigenwelt).
Freedom
Exists only as a potentiality, however, and can be underdeveloped in some people, or even denied.
How does one increase freedom?
By expanding consciousness.
It is through freedom of choice that the person can transcend his or her immediate circumstances, so no human needs to be a victim of environment, genetics, early experiences, or anything else.
Responsibility
Because we are free to choose our own existence, we are also entirely responsible for that existence. We can praise or blame no one but ourselves for whatever we become as people.
Ontology
The study of existence or what it means to be.
What is an Ontological Analysis?
Attempts to determine what all instances of each concept have in common.
Example of Ontology
Such an analysis seeks to determine the essential ingredients of the experience of love.
What two ontological questions are the existentialist concerned with?
- What is the essence of human nature, or what does it mean to be human?
- What does it mean to be a particular human, or what makes a person the way he or she is?
What is the existentialist interested in?
Discovering the essence of people in general and of particular individuals.
Phenomenology
Study of conscious experience as it exists for the person without any attempt to reduce, divide, or compartmentalize it in any way.
Authenticity
If people live their lives in accordance with values that are freely chosen, they re living authentic lives.
If, however, people conform to values established by others, they have not exercised their personal freedom and are therefore living inauthentic lives.
Inauthenticity
Casually related to neurotic anxiety and guilt and the feelings of loneliness, ineffectiveness, self-alienation, and despair.
Courage
An authentic life involves creating for oneself a structure of meaning that will guide one’s thoughts and actions.
Such a life requires courage because it means that often one’s beliefs and actions may be contrary to those that are widely accepted.
Death
Represents nothingness or nonbeing and is the polar opposite of the rich, full, creative life.
Represents the opposite of what most existentialist are urging people to come.
How to grasp the meaning of existence?
One needs to grasp the fact that he might not exist
How do you live an authentic life?
One must involve dealing with both literal and symbolic death and therefore, authenticity and anxiety are inseparable.
Thrownness
The facts that characterize a person’s existence over which he or she has no control.
Also called Facticity and Ground of Existence.